Australia is the monster that turns World Cup dreams to nightmares

Almost a decade ago, the women's Rugby League World Cup final was the last day before everything changed.

Australia's cracking 23-16 win over New Zealand in 2017 didn't just deliver the team its first-ever World Cup final win on home soil; it was the last major match before the women's game was transformed forever.

The following season, the interstate series moved under the NRL banner, the first NRLW season kicked off, and women's rugby league began to take giant strides.

A few players from that watershed moment are still around for this year's Rugby League World Cup, which begins tomorrow in Parramatta when Australia plays Samoa.

Isabelle Kelly, Kezie Apps and Simaima Taufa are still wearing green and gold; Zahara Temara has switched to New Zealand and will play for the Kiwi Ferns in their tournament opener against Fiji on Sunday alongside Raecene McGregor and Apii Nicholls.

These six exist in a different world from where they came from, one where the players are now faster, stronger, fitter and more skilful; where pathways have improved, and player numbers have exploded, where the game has evolved to a point where this should be the last World Cup that's held simultaneously alongside the men's tournament because the product is strong enough to stand alone.

But the issue heading into the tournament is at the top end of the product because Australia's dominance has become the growing pain the game must endure as everyone else tries to catch up. 

Since that win in 2017, the Jillaroos have won 15 of 16 matches. They have not conceded more than two tries in a game since 2018.

In the last World Cup, they won their five matches by a cumulative scoreline of 312-12, including a 54-4 massacre of New Zealand in the final.

The last time they played England, they won 90-4, and those four points mark the only try they've conceded to a team other than New Zealand in their past 16 games.

They won the Pacific Championship last year scoring 110 points and conceding just 12 across three matches, with the Kiwi Ferns copping a 40-8 belting in the final.

State of Origin regulars like Jesse Southwell and Abbi Church, both overlooked for the match against Samoa, can't make this team. A living legend like Ali Brigginshaw can't even make the squad.

The Jillaroos have nine players from this year's NRLW Dally M Team of the Year. In Tamika Upton, Olivia Kernick, Tarryn Aiken, Isabelle Kelly and Jess Sergis, they have the best player, forward, halfback and centres in the world.

They are, without question, the best women's rugby league team ever, and they are so much better than everyone else that anything less than a dominant run to the final and thumping victory at Lang Park will feel like a departure from a predestined fate.

Other teams have improved. New Zealand, who handed Australia its sole loss in recent years in 2023 and went down by just six points in one game last year, has risen highest with the tide.

As the Warriors settle back into the NRLW, they could rise higher still, and their squad for this year's tournament should have them there for the final.

Samoa is another side that has improved and could still get better. The Fetu have benefited from the injection of diaspora players like Taliah Fuimaono, Evania Isa'ako and Amber Hall, plus fresh faces like Queensland Origin flyer Destiny Mino-Sinapati and reigning NRLW rookie of the year Mercedez Taulelei-Siala.

They are a vision of what is possible for the expansion of women's rugby league and a beneficiary of the improved pathways leading to the NRLW.

It will take time, because we are talking about change that can take a decade or more to show, but the benefits are there for all to see in the men's game.

The women's game is on the same path; they're just not as far along. This is a brave, dangerous side with a real future, one which is easy to see unfolding before us.

One day a team like Samoa might be able to give the World Cup a real shake. But not these days.

The Samoans are currently 53.5-point underdogs against the Jillaroos in tomorrow night's match. They lost to them 60-0 in the corresponding clash last year.

Even that was nothing compared to the 90-4 belting England copped in Las Vegas last year, an eye-popping result that showed just how lopsided things had become.

The English will get a chance at revenge in Perth next week, and they're a much better side than the one who travelled to Nevada.

Roosters backrower Jasmin Strange is a welcome addition, and they have a core of NRLW players, including North Queensland's Fran Goldthorp, Canberra forward Hollie-Mae Dodd and clever Newcastle playmaker Georgia Roche.

If they can keep things respectable against the Jillaroos, that will be progress.

That gap can close as more top-level talent filters through the ranks, for England and everybody else.

But it will take time to run the Jillaroos down. And because the women's game is semi-professional, it's unlikely to happen as rapidly as the men's and progress could take a decade or more.

Until then, there is no choice but to keep going.

Every nation will have a moment. Some will have more than one because there will be glories outside absolute victory. Fiji will make its World Cup debut and Papua New Guinea will look to continue its steady progress of recent years.

A semi-final berth would be a major achievement for Samoa and a place in the final would be a shot in the arm for the game in England, so their group-stage clash is the pick of the early tournament matches.

The Kiwi Ferns will fancy their chances of an ambush should they meet Australia in the final, given the Jillaroos will have had a soft run in. They will point out they are the one in 15-1, and perhaps they will be right.

But at the end lurks Australia, the monster at the end of the dream that turns it into a nightmare and, just under a decade since the rest of history began, the truth of the pain it is about to inflict is simple.

This is the best collection of players ever assembled in women's rugby league, and if they at any point over the next month they are beaten, it will be one of the biggest upsets the game has known.